RUSSIAN NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Russian Slavdom—The Mir—Stress and Famine—The
Duma—Russian Literature—Gogol, Tolstoi,
Dostoievski—Realistic Ideals—The Russian Soul.
The eminent Russian publicist Menschikoff, in one of his works on
Russian nationalism, writes the following: “In a world-wide sense only
we Russians are Slavs and—unfortunately—so far no one else. The other
Slav nationalities are so dismembered, so stupidly and artificially
kept apart and hostile among themselves, that they scarcely count
either politically or otherwise. The majority of the Outer Slav nations
are still under the German, Hungarian or Turkish yoke, and at present
they are quite unable to shake off this yoke. There are many reasons
for the decline of the Western Slavs, but the principal one is the
_negative_ type of their character and the consequent tendency to
dissensions and mutual jealousies.... Even as regards national culture,
Russia—in spite of all her internal miseries—takes the lead among
the Slav nations. In every respect she has the right to say: ‘I am
Slavdom.’”
The somewhat bitter tone adopted towards the other Slav nations in this
dictum might easily be modified by an appeal to evidence, but, for
all that, Menschikoff’s remarks are correct in essentials. The truth
of his assertion as to the world-wide importance of the Russians and
the relative unimportance of the other Slavs to-day must be freely
admitted. And that is why a special interest attaches to the question
of the Russian people. It is too early in the day to judge of the full
significance of the Russians as a factor in the world’s development,
for they have scarcely yet come into their own. The birth of the
Russian people has been in progress for the last century. First the
head appeared—_Russian literature_, and then slowly, deliberately,
the giant body—the _Russian people_, who are gradually attaining to
political and national self-consciousness.
Till 1861 the Russian people led an embryonic existence within the womb
of Holy Mother Russia. A nobility of mixed Mongolian, German, British,
French and even Negroid (Pushkin) stock ate, breathed and thought
for the people. Most foreigners imagine that the Russian people were
“emancipated” in 1861. But this emancipation was only partial, and
more apparent than real; for though serfdom had been abolished, there
still remained the heavier yoke of the “Mir”—a conservative, iron-bound
institution, which has greatly hindered the development of the Russian
people by restricting the liberty of the individual. Strictly speaking,
the “Mir” was the village or parish, but in an economic sense it was
the association of several families under one head. The Slavophil
writers, Homiakoff and the brothers Kirieyevaki, with their followers
down to Pobyedonszeff saw in the “Mir” a guarantee, not only for the
welfare of Russia, but for all the world. They believed the “Mir” to
be that economic communism and moral brotherhood which Western Social
Democracy is vainly trying to discover in other ways. They held that
the “Mir” was destined to assure the future of the Russian people and
to afford it the means of solving all the social problems of the world
in accordance with the laws of justice and of love. Russian literature
is full of poems, treatises, and religious contemplations in praise of
it. Even the greatest Russian minds, such as Dostoievski himself, were
smitten with this idea. No “Western” doctrine was potent to disabuse
the Russians of their fallacy. Nature herself had to come to the
rescue, destroy the chimera and lead Russia back to the high road of
common sense and progress.
It happened very simply. The periodic famine arose in Russia, and the
vast Empire, the “granary of the world,” had no bread for millions
of her honest, hard-working children. They could not understand how
there could be a famine in a fertile, sparsely populated country,
whilst the teeming populations of the Western countries had enough to
eat. The starving Russian people argued that the famine was caused by
an insufficiency of _land_, and that they had been cozened in 1861
when the land was divided up between the nobles and the peasants. The
result was a growing ill-feeling against the ruling classes, to whom
the peasantry still had to pay “redemption-dues” either in money or
in kind. In accordance with ancient custom the “Mir” periodically
divided the land among its members. Obviously, in many communities
there was not enough land for each member. Result—Famine. The “Mir” was
self-governing, and had the same powers over its members as formerly
the lord of the soil. It exercised a paternal jurisdiction, punished
with blows, or with banishment to Siberia, divided the land, collected
taxes, issued travellers’ passes, and often made itself arbitrarily
unpleasant. During the ’nineties it became increasingly evident that
the “Mir” constituted a moral and material danger to the people. Poor
harvests followed by famine were the bane of the people from 1871 till
1907 and even as lately as 1911.
Space forbids me to enter into the agrarian crises—questions of
reform, experiments and reactions, which loom so large in the pages
of modern Russian history. Suffice it to say that all this led up to
the revolution in 1905, and that in consequence of this revolution
the Government decided upon a step it might equally well have taken in
1861. In 1906 the Government decided partially to dissolve the “Mirs,”
and by establishing freehold farm properties owned by _individuals_ it
created the yeoman farmer class with full civic rights. This reform
which was only fully carried through in 1911, marks the beginning of
a new political era for the Russian man of the people. It is still
too soon to feel the consequences of this truly great reform to
their full extent. The Russian peasant has scarcely got used to his
new position of individual freedom, and has not yet learnt to give
effect to his political and social will. There can be no question of
a constitution so long as the “Muzhik” has not attained to the full
stature of a citizen and agriculturist. In Russia we speak of a “first
Duma,” a “second Duma,” a “third Duma,” whereas no one in the rest of
Europe would speak of a “first,” “second,” or “third” Parliament, but
simply of “the Parliament.” These “first,” “second,” “third” and now
“fourth” Dumas are simply so many editions of one and the same Duma,
with each edition more rigorously pruned by the Government, till the
merest shadow is all that remains. At this moment the entire social
structure of Russia is analogous to this Duma-system. The Russian world
of intellect is no more entitled to represent the Russian people, than
the fourth Duma is to represent the first. The Russian intellectuals
may speak in the name of the people, but their word is really no
better than a third-hand account. Even when there is no attempt at
falsification, they always stand at a certain distance from the people.
Whatever the great Russian realists have written concerning their own
people is merely intuitive conjecture from a distance. A poet projects
his own world into the people. The psychology of the great Russian
writers of fiction is a _tendency_, an illusion based not on exact, but
on intuitive knowledge of the people. Russian realism borders on the
visionary, and on mysticism. Europe has hitherto failed to discern the
actual foundations of this poetry in its relation to Russian life, and
has simply allowed herself to be fascinated by the “keen psychology”
of the writers. The result has been a false impression. The facts are
really different—instead of _real truthfulness_ we find in the Russian
writer a realistic tendency, a _real ethical resentment_; thence the
increased “keenness” of his psychology, the critical touch in his
imagination, which gives such a striking effect of verisimilitude.
European critics have never detected the seam in the fabric of the
Russian novel; they have accepted the masterpiece as the outcome of a
single creative inspiration. Even though Russian realism comes nearer
to life than that of any other literature, still it is more art than
life.
Proof of this is to be found in Gogol’s private correspondence. He
frequently complained that nobody would send him “copy” from Russian
life. He begs in vain for hints, anecdotes and descriptions; he has to
“invent” his stories, and is ashamed of having to “deceive” his reader.
In his immortal comedy, “The Revising Inspector,” Gogol satirizes his
own “untruthfulness,” and in Hlestakoff, the great adventurer, who is
mistaken by every one for the real revising inspector, he ridicules
himself. For the sake of the people Gogol consents to play the
“revising inspector!” But Gogol’s “untruthfulness” is simply creative
genius. An eminent Tolstoi student, Osvianiko-Kulikovsky, has plainly
asserted that even Tolstoi was not of the soul of the people but of the
soul of the gentry. Tolstoi is a “_barin_” (landlord) and he thinks and
feels only as a _barin_. Turgenyeff was blamed even during his lifetime
for writing about Russia without knowing it; for he practically never
lived in Russia.
The inmost soul of the Russian people has, however, found an excellent
representative in Dostoievski. “Do not judge the Russian people”—pleads
Dostoievski—“by the atrocious deeds of which they have often been
guilty, but by those great and holy matters to which they aspire in
their depravity. And not all the people are depraved. There are saints
among them, who shed their light upon all, to show them the way.”
Dostoievski himself was such a light and such a saint. His works
reflect the character of the Russian clearly and faithfully as it is:
“In the Russian man of the people one must discriminate between his
innate beauty and the product of barbarism. Owing to the events of the
whole history of Russia, the Russian has been at the mercy of every
depraving influence, he has been so abused and tortured that it is a
miracle that he has preserved the human countenance, let alone his
beauty. But he has actually retained his beauty ... and in all the
Russian people there is not one swindler or scoundrel who does not know
that he is mean and vile.”
Dostoievski further adds: “No! The Russian people must not be judged by
_what they are_, but by _what they aspire to be_. The strong and sacred
ideals, which have been their salvation from the age of suffering, are
deeply rooted in the Russian soul from the very beginning, and these
ideals have endowed this soul for all time with simplicity and honesty,
with sincerity, and a broad, receptive good sense,—all in perfect
harmony.”
Concerning the part the Russian people are destined to play in the
world, Dostoievski wrote the following:
“The Russian people is a strange phenomenon in the history of mankind.
Their character is so different from that of the other peoples of
Europe that to this day Europeans have failed to understand it, and
misconstrue it at every turn. All Europeans move towards the same
goal. But they differ in their fundamental interests, which involve
them in collisions and antagonisms, whereby they are driven to go
different ways. The ideal of a universal humanity is steadily fading
from among them. The Russian people possess a notable advantage over
the other European nations,—a remarkable peculiarity. The Russians
possess the synthetic faculty in a high degree—the gift of feeling
_at one_ with the universe and a universal humanity. _The Russian has
none of the European angularity, he possesses the gift of discernment
and of generosity of soul._ He can adapt himself to anything and he
can _understand_. He has a feeling for all that is human, _regardless
of race_, _nationality_ or _fundamental ideas_. He finds and readily
admits reasonableness in all that contains even a vestige of true human
instinct. By this instinct he can trace the human element in other
nationalities even in exceptional cases. He accepts them at once, seeks
to approximate them to his own ideas, ‘places’ them in his own mind,
and often succeeds in finding a starting-point for reconciling the
conflicting ideas of two different European nations.”[4]
This characteristic is so general and so true, that all other opinions
on the character of a great people must take second place. It finds
room for the Cossack with his nagaika and for Tolstoi with his gospel.
It embraces every aspect of the human soul. Dostoievski himself
possessed the synthetic faculty, the wonderful gift of universal
understanding. He could make it clear that a crime may be a holy
deed, and holiness mere prostitution, even as he succeeded in fusing
Russian Christianity with the Tatar “Karat”[5] in one soul. Whence
came all these paradoxes in the one man? On one occasion he wrote: “I
am struggling with my petty creditors as _Laokoon wrestled with the
serpents_. I urgently require fifteen roubles. Only fifteen. These
fifteen roubles will give me relief, and I shall be better able to
work.” Here lies the secret of the Russian synthesis in Dostoievski.
Mental work is restricted by hard external circumstances. The inherent
tendency to despond when in trouble is one of the greatest dangers to
the Russian. He would fain lead the contemplative life, and hesitates
“to take up arms against a sea of troubles.” To combat this he has
had to lash himself into a state of hard practical efficiency. The
Russian must grow strong against himself before he can again take
up his ideal of an aggressive inner life. It is once more a case of
Laokoon and the serpents. For this very reason Tolstoi’s teaching
did not appeal to Dostoievski. When he had read a few sentences of
this doctrine he clutched his head and cried: “No, not that, anything
but that!” A few days later he was dead, and the world will never
know what was gathering in his mind against the great heretic. But
Dostoievski’s works are really in themselves a most vehement refutation
of the Nazarene doctrine—it is as if he had prophetically discerned
Tolstoi. Dostoievski solves the contrast between European culture and
Christianity in accordance with both the Church and culture. He bows
before the miracle, the mystery, and authority, and thus creates the
union between material culture and Christian culture. He accepts the
world as a whole, even as the Russian people take it.
Tolstoi denies the divinity of Christ and the entire synthesis of
Russian philosophy. But even Tolstoi could only have been born in
Russia. Personally he liked being accepted by the Russian peasants
as one of themselves. The figure of the “Muzhik” is inseparable from
Tolstoi’s doctrine, because Tolstoi’s doctrine is inseparable from the
Russian people. It lives in the Great Submerged, who are as far removed
from Western culture in fact as Tolstoi himself is in theory. Russian
law courts have to deal every day with people who refuse to pay taxes,
to serve in the army, or to acknowledge the “pravoslav” clerical
authority. The Church calls these people “Shkoptzi,” “Molokami,” or
“Hlisti.” There are about twenty million of them. They style themselves
“White doves,” “The New Israel,” “Doukhobortzi.” In principle they are
“pure Christians” like Tolstoi. Both have the same “tone” of soul.
Dostoievski says of Tolstoi that he was one of those who fix their eyes
on one point, and cannot see what happens to the right or to the left
of that; and if they _do_ wish to see it they have to turn with their
whole body, as they invariably move their _whole_ soul also in one
direction only. This correctly observed obstinacy is the very opposite
to the synthetic gift and generosity of soul mentioned before, and this
peculiarity of the Russian mind has often been called “Maximalism,” to
denote the rigid criterion, which loves no happy mean, but always goes
to the utter extreme.
Many Western writers, among them the British author Bering, have
asserted that the Slavs have no strength of will. This view is
erroneous and harmonizes neither with Tolstoi’s tendency to extremes,
nor with Dostoievski’s universal charity. It applies only to such
phenomena in Slav life as are accessible to the European tourist, as,
for instance, technical undertakings and colonial enterprise; for
in this matter the Slav is naturally not so well qualified as the
Englishman.
The Russian soul, and consequently the character of the Russian people,
is many-sided and paradoxical in its obstinacy and its generosity. It
is the historical outcome of such extremes as are represented by yellow
positivist Mongolism, and gentle altruistic Christianity. But the soul
of the Russian people has not yet clearly found itself, like the souls
of the Western nations; first, because the head has not yet acquired
control over the body; secondly, because the work of enlightenment and
emancipation is only being completed by the present war. Hitherto it
has laboured in its birth-throes. It has been a Laokoon wrestling with
serpents.